18 A December To Remember

Out of all the months in the year, December is most magical for me. Peace, joy, love, all these words sum up the general atmosphere. People seem happier - school is out, holidays are in. This means lots of family gatherings and meeting up with friends.

I hung greeting cards we received on our Christmas tree this year. It's a nice feeling, this warmth that creeps up on me every time I look at it. The holiday season was not as hectic for me this round. I was most efficient having spring-cleaned my home in November and getting all the decorations up. I'd also gotten the presents wrapped and sent out!

Christmas Tree

My aunt and cousin flew in for a visit a couple of weeks before Christmas. We had a fabulous time shopping, catching up and teasing one another mercilessly. 1Utama and The Curve were the first places we hit. My aunt's luggage was filled to the brim on the first day itself. We felt very proud of her ..haha!

In a bid to avoid crowd and queue, we woke up at 5am the next day just to take my aunt to the legendary Big Bad Wolf book sales at Mines Convention Centre. I got ten books for myself. The rest were for my nephews. With the ones I purchased earlier from Popular Book's RM5 sale corner, I figure it could last me a year. I read pretty fast and have a habit of not putting a book down until I'm done. That's why I make sure I don't start on a new book until I've done my chores and run my errands. Also, my eyes need a break!

Big Bad Wolf Book Sale

Books I Bought

Pavilion Mall is always stunning at this time of year so aunt and I headed there for a look-see. Lucky us came across a LINE pop-up store at Tokyo Street corner - they were giving out free gifts to anyone whose Birthday fell in January. My aunt and I qualified! We showed them our MyKad, the LINE app on our phone and voila, we were given a cute tee, a bag and stickers. My aunt found it unbelievable - "So easy to get free things one meh..."

Christmas At Pavilion, KL

Free LINE Merchandise

My aunt went home, there ended her adventures in KL. Then came the Winter Solstice Festival. This year, I made a different version of 'tangyuan' (glutinous rice ball). I rolled some up with organic moringa powder - it turned a lovely shade of green. We enjoyed it with honey chrysanthemum tea.

Moringa Tangyuan

When my cousin informed that she would be popping by my house one Saturday, I decided to bake her a cake. I woke up early, whipped up a batter for butter cake and kept my fingers crossed as it went into the oven.

It was wrapped prettily and passed to my cousin. She buzzed me later asking for the recipe, saying that they loved it so much. Sigh ..best day ever.

Butter Cake For My Cousin

Christmas day itself was a quiet affair. We skipped doing the 'open house' thing this year. Hubs and I were feeling the after-effects of too much celebrating. It was nice to just chill at home. The feasting and festiveness hasn't ended and we both needed the break.

Rest Is The Sweet Sauce Of Labour~ Plutarch

8 Christmas at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

A day out in the big city. Two girls, window shopping. That was our goal...plus a small spending budget.

"It would be folly to 'squander' our savings on a festive whim," so I thought to myself in the seriousness of a puppy chewing on her treats. The truth is, I really wanted to save every penny for a big book sale we were heading to this weekend. Well, we certainly made good on keeping our hands off our wallets!

Did we have a great day then? I describe it as magical. We were consumed by the holiday spirit - this, after seeing a beautiful Christmas tree outside a small boutique hotel. I haven't figured out what exactly it was that hit us, but we zipped through several malls snapping photos of every Christmas tree we saw.

These are just the ones I took at Pavilion, which in my personal opinion, was out-of-this-world enchanting.

Christmas at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

Left corner of the Christmas Santa at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

An overall picture of the Christmas decor at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

More Christmas trees at the entrance of Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

The night scene - Christmas at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

Although exhausted, we couldn't resist walking back to Pavilion to see how the trees would look like at night. We were surprised with a musical light show. This is a short video of it. Happens at 8PM ;)

On a side note,  Crabtree & Evelyn is giving out a mystery gift! Snap a photo of yourself at their store or Christmas booth, using the props provided. Upload the photo into Crabtree & Evelyn's 'Festive Joy Wishes' app on Facebook. Show this to the cashier to claim the gift. We did this on the spot via our mobile phone and were both rewarded with a tube of hand lotion. 

In case anyone's interested, Crabtree & Evelyn's Christmas booth is located near the main entrance of Pavilion. 

Crabtree & Evelyn Mystery Gift!

Looks like we didn't go home empty handed after all ;)

All in, we covered seven malls! Sticky with sweat and in need of a bath, badly. Exercise? Bah, pretty sure this counts as enough. I'm feeling healthier already.

5 Christmas Tree .... s

I know it looks like I've really gotten carried away this year ...

My Collection of Christmas Trees

At the RM5 store.

Man : Gonna get this for the office. (Picks up small undecorated tree and walks off).

Wife picks out pretty purple tree for the guest room... thinks man should have purchased one with all the baubles on but did not interfere with man's tree quest. She thinks it would be hilarious to see him decorating the tree since he's always Mr. Reluctant at home.

We walked out of the store happily.

An hour later, Man came to his senses. Another small tree with gold baubles was purchased.

And that's how I landed myself with an extra Christmas tree! It would have been a waste to put it away so I dressed it simply with pine cones, a bit of gold and left it as a centerpiece on the dining table.

Before

Today!

This 6ft Christmas tree, on the other hand, has been with us for almost decade. I make little changes to how I decorate the tree year by year. I added two purple masks in 2012. That cost me about seven ringgit. This year, I forked out ten ringgit for two boxes of pink baubles.

I've been dreaming of a pink Christmas for ages but I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money just to change the entire theme of the tree. So I did it in stages...or you could say, in years.

The tree started out with blue and silver decorations. Over the period, purple was added and now pink. I finally have enough to do away with the blue baubles completely.

Dream realised. Mission accomplished. What's next? Gold, I guess *wink*